are the stars out tonight?

life and stuff

27.6.04

i'm not really quite 'with it' at the moment. not in a bad unhip sense (although in that sense i'm not particularly 'with it' either). i mean i just don't seem to be quite on the ball. like last night: i remember reading my book *, finishing a chapter and putting it on the floor (together with some critical notes i'd been reading on it), i definitely took off my glasses and my watch and put them on my bedside table, but at that point, my memory deserts me. the fact of the matter is that i woke up at 3:45am, and my bedside lamp was still on! imagine that! i can't quite believe that i was so tired that i forgot to switch it off, but the proof seems to be there. unless at some now unremembered point, i had a bad dream and switched it on to comfort me. or i did it in my sleep. it's very strange.

*the book i'm reading at the moment is emma by jane austen. i thought i had read it before, but i'm now fairly sure i haven't, although i'm certain that i've seen the film. it's good - i'd forgotten how bitchy austen can be. my edition (which i think must have been my maternal grandmother's, as it was published in 1948) doesn't have any notes, so i spent an enjoyable twenty minutes in books etc reading notes from other editions, and i found an essay on it in my favourite easy critical reading: can jane eyre be happy.

ok, i have now got gmail invitations coming out of my ears (not literally, that would be painful, and probably impossible). if you would like one, then please email me or leave a comment here, i'd really like an orkut invitation if anyone wants to swap.

i'm posting this from my lovely lovely computer, who i have christened lux, after kirsten dunst's character in the virgin suicides, and also because she sort of radiates light, and also she's a bit of a luxury. there is no reference to the shower gel (which wierdly doesn't have a website).

so, zeugma (pron. zoy-gma i believe, although it could be zyoo-gma probably), is the application of one word (verb) to apply to two nouns, one of which is usually abstract. so: "i left my heart and underwear in san francisco", "mr pickwick took his hat and his leave", or best of all "you can leave in a taxi. if you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. if that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff." from the marx brothers' duck soup

i have been obsessively checking the apple store to see where my computer is. it has that slightly boring but compulsive feeling to it, a bit like big brother *.

my package started off in duiven in the netherlands where it cleared customs at 5.12pm on wednesday, and then went to eindhoven to be collected at 9.16pm the same day. it travelled for what seems to be an entire day, before arriving this morning at quarter to six in hounslow. hownslow! that's really really close to my house. oh please let it come soon, or i might have to get over there and get it myself (hmm wonder if they'd let me).

* i don't seem to have warmed to any of the people in big brother this year, they all seem pretty awful, but it is still compulsive viewing: especially with the evil thing, which is better than i thought it would be.

by the way, language not my strong point at the moment, i blame it on, y'know, not being an english student anymore. i used to be able to use words like "ellipsis" and "synecdoche" and "litotes" and actually know what they meant without having to look them up on google. imagine.

(ellipsis - leaving out a word or a phrase on the grounds that it is understood by the reader or listener: "are you going to the gig" "yes [i am going to the gig]", it can also mean "...". synecdoche - using a part of something to symbolise the whole: "nice wheels" (trans. nice car - unless the wheels are really cool). litotes - understatement for comic effect, usually featuring a negation of some kind: "i'm not totally unexcited about the arrival of my computer". here endeth the lesson. tomorrow on atsot: what is zeugma anyway? and how do you pronounce it.)

update 11:27am - apparently even as i was posting this, my computer was leaving the terminal at hounslow (at 9.22) for delivery. where is it now?

update(again) 11:50 - it's here, it's here. barely disguised hysteria all round! (and i told the delivery man that i'd been following his progress on the internet, and he looked at me like i was insane. oops)

this bike has appeared around the corner from my house. those of you who have been to my house, or who know da bush at all will know that it's not the best of ideas to leave a bike (even chained up) lying around. so i was a bit curious about it, especially when i saw the futuristic lock mechanism, which involves your mobile phone and a security code. it turns out that it's part of a pilot scheme in hammersmith and fulham called oy bike (short for on your bike), a service (which seems fairly complicated) to let you rent a bike at any time of night. i think it's a good idea (although i'm less sure about the yearly fee, and also this is the only one i've seen so far), but i'm not convinced how successful it's going to be.

i would also like to say yay for studenting, as it has allowed me to get a beautiful new computer for a bargainous price. and also i handed in an essay yesterday (my last essay ever, unless you count my dissertation) called 'ipc subeditors dictate our youth': the decline of the british music press. i wish i could tell my fifteen-year-old self that, she'd be so pleased.

had a lovely lovely weekend in york, you can see some pictures on paul's site. we've finally finished our magazine/newspaper. whoot. though i still have a crazy crazy amount of work to do.

last night we were sitting around the kitchen table, talking about the mayoral candidates (because that's the kind of family we are). the evening standard ran a piece last night which was a 'how well do you know london' thing. one of the questions was 'name all the royal parks'. i got regent's park, st james' park, green park, richmond park, kensington gardens and hyde park. the others are greenwich park, brompton cemetary and bushy park. my mum on hearing that bushy park was a royal park uttered this statement "but i thought it belonged to the queen". in her defence she'd had a long day.

we went to see harry potter last night at city screen. having seen the other two there, i wanted to go there to see this one. it's weird to think that by the time the next one comes out i'll have to see it in london.

it was quite good. it was very different in places from the book, where the previous two stuck closely to the originals. i think cuaron did a really good job with the directing though. there were moments where it was almost like kitchen sink drama. and one really lovely scene (not in the book), where harry, ron, sean, neville and dean are sitting in their dormitory and just being young lads. that was great. but there was rather a lot of homespun wisdom that seemed pretty irrelevant to me.

incidentally, if you are a potter fan then i really recommend jk rowling's official site - it has loads of extra stuff, and is generally interesting.

i'm beginning to feel like i never want to see another computer. this subbing malarkey isn't as much fun as it initially seemed (and it didn't seem like that much fun in the first place). my eyes feel curiously sore and my head is beginning to ache. if it wasn't for pilates last night, my back would probably be aching (i wish i could go more than once a week - my god, i actually find myself wanting to excercise, there must be something going wrong).

bleargh. moan, moan, moan!

at least brighton was fantastic as ever. i bought a new pair of shoes (beige ballet-style slippers covered in large flowers - retro classic), and kept getting stuck in shops because they were playing such good music - twattybus in rokit and franz ferdinand in cissy mo. the weather was so nice that i had to buy myself a new top as well. the fact that i've got no money is neither here nor there really.
york this weekend. i can't wait. although i've got rather a lot of work to get through before friday. gah.

Weathering

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